Conversations around the dining table reveal personalities. The cautious, the skilled, the frank, the bored, the easy to please and the hard to please. It is a tug of dynamics engaged in the most civilized way, with food and drinks and everyone sitting down. Most people try to get through dinner without causing too much of a stir and conversation usually falls on the mundane side. But why should we spar? Why get into agitating topics like politics and judgements on the most recent catastrophic relationship? To maintain an outward peace means we’ll never get to know each other.
But my family does not have to be my community. I think they represent the greater world, a sampling of characters with different views that will never understand each other. We come together by the bond of marriage and blood, and like the greater world, learn to coexist side by side.
They represent the “other”,but not enough of it.
Frank speakers, come dine with me.
If you think one thing and say another to be polite or avoid provocative subjects, there is no place at the dining table for you -)